When I was a kid, Portuguese existed as a lullabye language for me. My Mom sang it to me to fall asleep, when she saw the moon (Lua, o, Lua) and as my Father lay in his hospital bed, dying. She taught me words for my face and food and how to name my family. They were all fluent and swam in the language easily, naming things and having animated discussions across the table, in front of me and instead of with me.
Since most of it was about grownup issues, as a child, I turned away and to the television. My Portuguese American cousins gave up on the Portuguese arguments in the kitchen and we sat in front of their Cathode Ray Tube, watching early versions of MTV, back when it meant Music Television. (Cue "Sister Christian")
If Portuguese were an endangered language, it would have died out with my Mom's generation. English was what you needed to know to get a good job. All the Portuguese-Americans I knew were poor.
So here is an infographic about the world's languages, from the South China Morning Post.
7,102 is the magic number of living languages in existence now. Comparable to the number of stars visible to the naked human eye at night. The number of languages is decreasing as the last speakers die and they are not taught/used by the younger generations.
Portuguese is being spoken by 203 million people, compared to 399 million Spanish speakers. "Fala Portugues" in 12 different countries, whereas 120 countries speak English. The US has 422 languages that are spoken as a first language; English is maybe the "lingua franca".
Or it is the language of money.
In the world of Linguistics, a "language" is defined as a "dialect with an army". That means it can defend itself. Maybe now, it is also defined as a "dialect with a web presence".
Even now, the immigrants have a certain stereotype to them, acknowledged by the next generation. They are older, religious, superstitious, cautious, etc. But don't you DARE speak that way about my VOVO!!
In the New York Times today, there is this article, about the Azorean Diaspora. To me it seems a little sloppy (i.e. NOT written by someone who knows the communities, or was RAISED in any of them. The most ignorant of Americans.) And it seems a little reductive/simplistic/stereotypical. The author is capturing that many Azorean Immigrants go back for the religious festivals. But not the deeper Saudade.
To quote:
"“I don’t think there’s another place in Europe with a diaspora that has kept such an intense relationship with the U.S.,” said Gonçalo Matias, director of the Migration Observatory, a Lisbon-based institute that monitors Portuguese migration.
"The Azoreans," Mr. Matias added, have given Portugal “a political weight that is larger than its geostrategic importance” because they formed “communities that have been extremely successful and politically powerful.”
Since most of it was about grownup issues, as a child, I turned away and to the television. My Portuguese American cousins gave up on the Portuguese arguments in the kitchen and we sat in front of their Cathode Ray Tube, watching early versions of MTV, back when it meant Music Television. (Cue "Sister Christian")
If Portuguese were an endangered language, it would have died out with my Mom's generation. English was what you needed to know to get a good job. All the Portuguese-Americans I knew were poor.
So here is an infographic about the world's languages, from the South China Morning Post.
7,102 is the magic number of living languages in existence now. Comparable to the number of stars visible to the naked human eye at night. The number of languages is decreasing as the last speakers die and they are not taught/used by the younger generations.
Portuguese is being spoken by 203 million people, compared to 399 million Spanish speakers. "Fala Portugues" in 12 different countries, whereas 120 countries speak English. The US has 422 languages that are spoken as a first language; English is maybe the "lingua franca".
Or it is the language of money.
In the world of Linguistics, a "language" is defined as a "dialect with an army". That means it can defend itself. Maybe now, it is also defined as a "dialect with a web presence".
Even now, the immigrants have a certain stereotype to them, acknowledged by the next generation. They are older, religious, superstitious, cautious, etc. But don't you DARE speak that way about my VOVO!!
In the New York Times today, there is this article, about the Azorean Diaspora. To me it seems a little sloppy (i.e. NOT written by someone who knows the communities, or was RAISED in any of them. The most ignorant of Americans.) And it seems a little reductive/simplistic/stereotypical. The author is capturing that many Azorean Immigrants go back for the religious festivals. But not the deeper Saudade.
To quote:
"“I don’t think there’s another place in Europe with a diaspora that has kept such an intense relationship with the U.S.,” said Gonçalo Matias, director of the Migration Observatory, a Lisbon-based institute that monitors Portuguese migration.
"The Azoreans," Mr. Matias added, have given Portugal “a political weight that is larger than its geostrategic importance” because they formed “communities that have been extremely successful and politically powerful.”
Portugal has a political weight because of these immigrant groups? I would LOVE to see the evidence behind this statement. Maybe I am the ignorant one. But I do not see any cohesiveness that translates back into the Portuguese political or economic life, other than the family-tourism. I think it is more like hoping that the family you have sent to America will send back money, and all they send back is their hand me down clothes.
Another quote:
However, some visitors have to take much longer and more costly trips requiring overnight stopovers to reach the islands. They are driven by their determination to witness the religious celebration, during which the statue of the Christ of Miracles is carried for four hours around Ponta Delgada, the main town in the Azores, along a route that is carpeted with brightly colored sawdust.
Ahem, "sawdust"?? Woodchips, thank you very much!! And even then, they are only used to emulate the FLOWER PETALS that they used to use. The wood chips last longer. And are still biodegradable. (How would you dye or paint sawdust?)
And the issue of "requiring overnight stopovers". If the article is AMERICAN based, where exactly are these stopovers occurring?? Eventually, all the flights must leave out of Boston (okay, maybe), but the ONLY place they can go is Sao Miguel, the island the article is discussing. Yes, any trip may include multiple nights, but there is NO place to stop in the ATLANTIC OCEAN between Boston and Sao Miguel. It IS the layover.
To me, all that I read about the Azores is Non-Fiction, like everything is coming out of an Encyclopedia Brittanica volume (not even Wikipedia). Either that, or it is a land of untranslatable magic & legends. How to break the code for that? How to capture the REAL Saudade of a place?
No comments:
Post a Comment